How This Woman Gained 22 Pounds but Stayed the Exact Same Clothing Size

Age, weight, clothing size...it’s all just a number. Fitness influencer Victoria Winterford proved as much in her latest transformation post, which revealed that she gained weight but didn’t change her size. Both images show her in a black bikini, but there’s a difference of 22 pounds (or 10 kilograms). The one constant? Her size 8 frame.

“How??” the 25-year-old from the UK asked. “Yep that little thing we call muscle.”

Winterford went on to talk about how the numbers on the scale and on the clothing tag distract us from seeing real fitness results—such as her recent increase in muscle mass. A boost in muscle is a common body change many people notice after switching up their fitness routine, and it can cause an uptick on the scale because muscle weighs more.

“We all get so paranoid over those numbers ... we let it control us, how we train, how much we should be eating … when really we need to be focusing on how we LOOK and how we FEEL.”

She tells Health that she’s struggled with finding a more intuitive way to eat and exercise. “I used to be very underweight,” she says. “I would restrict myself from eating too many calories, obsessed with weighing myself in case I put on weight, and definitely overtrained my body. I was very body conscious and always wanted to look like someone else.”

Now, she’s learned how to train and eat properly, and she's hoping that her message is something others, particularly young women, can relate to.

“The pressures of social media these days make people think they have to look a certain way, [but] realistically we should just be the best version of ourselves no matter what,” she says. “I just want to help as many people as possible [by] spreading a positive message about body image and living a healthy but also balanced lifestyle.”